Sunday, October 06, 2024

They Are Just Trying To Scare You To Vote For Them

It is the right-wing version of a boogieman! They have a number of boogiemen, another favorite is that the Democrats are going to take away your guns, I think they have been saying that since Reagan.

What is a bias crime*, most people have no idea… so when the right throws out these off-the-wall warnings they believe them.
 
Which of these are a bias crime?
A) A bunch of drunks in a college parking lot using the “N” word at a bunch of Blacks.
B) A holier than thou lady holding a Bible say we are all sinners and going to hell at a funeral for a gay man.
C) A parade of White guys with torches.

Is one of these a bias crime? Are they all bias crimes?
Opinion: Vance is right. Harris and Walz are a threat to Americans' free speech.
We are living through the most dangerous anti-free speech movement in American history.
USA Today
By Jonathan Turley
October 3, 2024


In the vice presidential debate Tuesday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz pulled the fire alarm.

His opponent, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, cited the massive system of censorship supported by Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate.

Walz proceeded to quote the line from a 1919 case in which Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said you do not have the right to falsely yell fire in a crowded theater.

It is the favorite mantra of the anti-free speech movement. It also is fundamentally wrong.

In my book "The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I discuss the justice's line from his opinion in Schenck v. United States. Holmes wrote, “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.”
Well I never read his book but if it is like this it is full of that brown stuff.
For example, when I testified last year before Congress against a censorship system that has been described by one federal court as "similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth,’” Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., interjected with the fire-in-a-theater question to say such censorship is needed and constitutional. In other words, the internet is now a huge crowded theater and those with opposing views are shouting fire.
Hun? What is he talking about? Who is banning books, tell people what they can say in schools, banning parades? Non-discrimination laws don’t ban any of these!
Goldman and Walz both cited a case in which socialists Charles Schenck and Elizabeth Baer were arrested and convicted of violating the Espionage Act of 1917. Their "crime" was to pass out flyers in opposition to the military draft during World War I.
Hold it right there! They released classified documents! They were not convicted of violating the First Amendment. The publishing of the Pentagon Papers was free speech… the stealing of them was not.
As I have said, the Biden-Harris administration has proved to be the most anti-free speech administration in two centuries. You have to go back to John Adams' administration to find the equal of this administration.

Harris has been an outspoken champion of censorship in an administration that supports targeting disinformation, misinformation and "malinformation." That last category was defined by the Biden administration as information “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.”
Wait a minute Trump has proposed the same thing! He said that he would prosecute reporters! Reuters reported that,
Former U.S. President Donald Trump, who is the Republican presidential candidate, said on Friday he will seek the prosecution of Google(GOOGL.O), opens new tab if he wins the Nov. 5 election, claiming that the company only displays "bad stories" about him.
Me thinks that Mr. Turley got his blinders on and is only seeing one side. He goes on to write,
We are living through the most dangerous anti-free speech movement in American history. We have never before faced the current alliance of government, corporate, academic and media forces aligned against free speech. A Harris-Walz administration with a supportive Congress could make this right entirely dispensable.
Yes, we are. And I think that it is a candidate who cannot tell the truth, has said he will go after people in the media that he didn’t like, the candidate who said he would be a dictator on day one of his taking office.

Back to that quiz…
A) Was a case where a group on the campus of UConn shouting racial slurs, the charges were dropped and the university settled out of court for false arrest.
B) Was at the funeral of Matthew Shepard.
C) Was at Charlottesville when the Proud Boys marched.

The person who got arrested receive restitution from the college and the others were never arrested.

Yes, there is a thin line between a bias crime and free speech, they courts have said that there must be intimidation, threats of violence or actual violence for it to be a bias crime. But the Republicans lies to scare you into believing that it is true.

 
*Why do I say “bias crime” instead of a “hate crime” well simple put hate is not a crime, it is only when they take action or make threats is it a crime.
at No comments:

Do You See A Difference?

Hurricane Hellene created a wide slash of destruction across a half a dozen states, in the Appalachians there were major floods knocking out bridges, roads, and utilities across six states. Currently there are 757,000 homes and businesses without power, down from a peak of over 4.5 million last week. A massive number of bridges are closed and uncounted number of roads have been washed out. AP News reported that,
Several main routes into Asheville were washed away or blocked by mudslides, including a 4-mile (6.4-kilometer) section of Interstate 40, and the city’s water system was severely damaged, forcing residents to scoop creek water into buckets so they could flush toilets.
The conservative New York Post wrote,
Desperate residents of Hurricane Helene-ravaged western North Carolina are relying on homegrown rescue efforts instead of waiting for the Biden-Harris administration’s financially depleted FEMA to get its act together.

Not content to hold out hope for help that some fear might not arrive in time, a handful of grassroots rescue operations have sprung up to render assistance by air, land and even on four legs.

[…]

Helene is the third-deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland US in more than half a century, behind only Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Camille in 1969, according to Fox Weather.
Lets see what Republican governors had to say.
Fact check: Amid bipartisan praise for Biden hurricane response, Trump falsely claims reviews are ‘universally’ negative
CNN
By Daniel Dale
October 3, 2024


Former President Donald Trump, seeking to capitalize politically on the devastation from Hurricane Helene, falsely claimed in a social media post on Thursday that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris “are universally being given POOR GRADES for the way that they are handling the Hurricane, especially in North Carolina.”

Facts First: Trump is wrong. The Biden administration’s response to the hurricane has received bipartisan praise from political leaders in affected states.

That praise has not been universal; there has also been some criticism and some ambivalence. But Trump’s assertion that reviews for the Biden administration’s handling of the crisis have been entirely negative is not true.

[…]

Various Republican governors in the southeastern states hit by Hurricane Helene have praised the Biden administration’s response, sometimes naming Biden in particular.

Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said at a Tuesday press conference that federal assistance had “been superb,” noting that Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had both called and told him to let them know whatever the state needed. McMaster added that the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Deanne Criswell, had also called. He said, “So we’re getting assistance, and we’re asking for everything we need.”

Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said at a Monday press conference, “I’m incredibly appreciative of the rapid response and the cooperation from the federal team at FEMA.” He specifically thanked Biden, among others, in a press release the day prior.
 The article goes on to report that,
Cooper, the North Carolina governor, has repeatedly praised the federal response. Sitting beside Biden during the president’s visit to North Carolina on Wednesday, Cooper said, “We’re grateful for the quick actions and close communications that we have had with the president and with the FEMA team,” adding moments later, “And Mr. President, we know that we have made a lot of asks of you, and we are grateful for your ear and for your actions.”

Cooper said in a briefing on Tuesday: “I briefed President Biden and Vice President Harris each on two occasions, and they have committed every resource available to this recovery. I appreciate the president’s quick approval of our major disaster declaration this weekend and his direction that FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell will continue to be here on the ground,” saying that residents were already starting to receive assistance funds.

 Gee this doesn’t sound like what the New York Post is saying? Who do you trust? Trump?

Trump allies also claimed that undocumented immigrants are looting.
Tennessee authorities confirmed to Newsweek Tuesday that a group of eight men had been arrested for suspected looting in a flood-devastated area, but claims that they were undocumented migrants were unfounded.

All eight are currently in custody at the Washington County Detention Center, held on $20,000 bonds, according to local law enforcement officials.

Following their arrests, a NewsNation reporter on the southern border claimed on Monday these men were "getaways", as confirmed by a Department of Homeland Security official.

On Tuesday, officials in Tennessee denied that to Newsweek.

In a now-deleted post on X, Ali Bradley said:

"DHS sources confirm 8 men arrested for looting in flood-ravaged Tennessee entered as 'gotaways.'"

The post suggested that those arrested were illegal or undocumented migrants, showing the mugshots of those detained by deputies.
Why can’t the right tell the truth? Why do they have to stir up hatred against minorities with their lies! First it was Haitians in Springfield, in Tennessee. The right-wing wants to rally their xenophobic base, that caused violence in Springfield Ohio with bomb threats.

Vote Blue!
at No comments:

Cuckoo Award

We have a multiple Cuckoo Award winner this morning with another off-the-wall utterance, this time it was about Hurricane Helene…

The Forbes reports,
In a series of social media posts, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., appeared to claim Democrats could “control the weather” after Hurricane Helene ripped through the Southeast, adding to other baseless conspiracy theories promoted by the lawmaker, including her earlier support of the QAnon movement and how space lasers caused forest fires.
So with great fanfare we award this Cuckoo Award to the top cuckoo…  Rep. Greene.
at No comments:

Saturday, October 05, 2024

Instant Gratification

[Editorial]
 
We are an instant nation. We want everything NOW!

After the massive hurricane… why don’t I have power! Why aren’t the roads and bridges fixed! Why, why, why!

In my 75+ years I have seen many natural disasters… the 1955 floods from Connie & Diane, the blizzard of 78, Gloria     Connecticut in 1985,  Hurricane Bob, in ‘91. Tropical storm Sandy in 2012 in Vermont took years to rebuild, friends were isolated in a Vermont town for weeks, then the roads were only open to travel to and from work for months. Even to this day you can see the scar from the storm.

So today people are clamoring to get everything fixed NOW.

The in blizzard of ‘78 we didn’t have power for over a week because we were down a dead end street with only about a twenty houses. One of our neighbors died of a heart attack while shoveling, emergency vehicle couldn't get to him so they told her to put his body in the garage, Can you imagine the trauma she had? (Two days later they got to the house, a bulldozer was pushing the plow truck followed by an ambulance.) Where I live now we are one of the first to get power back. Why? Because the lines supply power to the whole south end of the town.

Down south they will start at the edges of the disaster and work their way from there. Get the major roads first to get the relief supplies in. Tackle the outages that will get the most people back on line.

Of course there are the people who want to make this political, they blame the Democrats, blame government for taking too long get the power back on. One nut job is saying that they are looking at the voter lists and getting the Democrats back first.

There is a story about an isolated incident, a helicopter pilot who was threatened with arrest for delivering relief supplies but it seems that the person who said they would arrest them was a out of state volunteer with no authority to make an arrest… but the story is being spread.

Connecticut utilities companies have sent dozens of crews, the National Guard has sent helicopters and support crews to help, and I imagine all the other states have done the same thing.

But for some people that is not enough… they want it NOW!
 
[/Editorial]


Update: 3:45PM
By Joanne Haner
October 5, 2024


A mayor in Tennessee joined other local officials Friday to denounce skepticism and rumors that have swirled around the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) response to the devastation in the southeastern U.S. from Hurricane Helene.

Mayor Glenn Jacobs (R), who serves Knox County, Tenn., signaled in a post online that the attacks on the administration could make recovery efforts more difficult.

“To my knowledge, FEMA, TEMA, nor anyone else is confiscating supplies,” Jacobs, a former professional wrestler, wrote Friday in a post on social platform X. “Please quit spreading those rumors as they are counterproductive to response efforts.”

“If everyone could maybe please put aside the hate for a bit and pitch in to help, that would be great,” he added.

The message comes days after allegations were floated that FEMA does not have enough money to provide disaster assistance, is stealing cash donations from survivors and has turned away volunteers.

It also follows skepticism from former President Trump around the Biden administration’s response to the deadly storm, when he claimed FEMA would use hurricane funds on migrants. The White House pushed back on these claims Friday, calling out the GOP for “using Hurricane Helene to lie and divide us.”
Isn't that great! Trump stirring up unrest and anger through his lies!
 
Newsweek reports that,
His comments follow a similar sentiment from North Carolina state Sen. Kevin Corbin (R), who also asked the public to tone down the rhetoric, calling it “conspiracy theory junk.”

Former President Donald Trump has been accused of spreading falsehoods about the federal response to Hurricane Helene to benefit himself politically.

[...]

Trump and a number of his Republican allies have been pushing unsubstantiated claims this week concerning the response of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to Helene, which left over 200 people dead and dealt massive damage to infrastructure when it ripped through the Southeast last week.

The ex-president falsely claimed that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was diverting disaster relief money to illegal migrants and made an evidence-free assertion that the Biden administration was denying relief to "Republican areas."
You know why Trump said that is because that was what Trump did in Puerto Rico so he thinks everyone does it.
New probe confirms Trump officials blocked Puerto Rico from receiving hurricane aid
The Trump administration also obstructed an investigation looking into why it was depriving the U.S. territory of congressionally approved funds, the report found.
NBC News
By Nicole Acevedo
April 22, 2021

The administration of former President Donald Trump obstructed an investigation looking into why officials withheld about $20 billion in hurricane relief for Puerto Rico following the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017, one of the deadliest U.S. natural disasters in over 100 years, a new report says.

A Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Inspector General report made public Thursday also found that tensions between the department and the Office of Management and Budget resulted in unprecedented procedural hurdles that produced delays in the disbursement of the congressionally approved funds.
This is the work of the vindictive person, it is the work of a racist!
Investigators said they were unable to obtain testimonies from officials who ordered the interagency review process. Former HUD Secretary Ben Carson and another former HUD official also declined to be interviewed by investigators.
Is this vindictive person who you want as the next President of the United States?
at No comments:

Saturday 9: Love on Top

On Saturdays I take a break from the heavy stuff and have some fun…
 
Some of you may have though you read this yesterday... you did until I realized that I posted it a day early. I wrote this at 2AM Thursday thinking it was Friday and got a little bit discombobulated so if you thought you saw this early Friday morning you did. (You had a sneak preview.)

Welcome to Saturday 9. What we've committed to our readers is that we will post 9 questions every Saturday. Sometimes the post will have a theme, and at other times the questions will be totally unrelated. Those weeks we do "random questions," so-to-speak. We encourage you to visit other participants posts and leave a comment. Because we don't have any rules, it is your choice. We hate rules. We love memes, however, and here is today's meme!


Unfamiliar with this week's song? Hear it here.

1) Beyonce sings that she and her lover have worked through a tough time and now they are happier than before. Do you agree with the lyrics that relationships take effort? Or do you think that if a couple is well-matched and their love is real, happiness will naturally follow?
Nope, from all the relationships that I have seen, it takes work… lots of work.

2) She tells us that he's the one she can always call. But that was in 2011. If someone needed to get in touch with you today, would you recommend they call, send an instant message, or text?
Call the landline and leave a voice message. I screen all my calls, those on my contact list get a special ring, one ringtone for family, one for friends, and one ringtone for businesses. If the call doesn’t have a special ringtone I let it go to voice mail.

3) Beyonce goes through many costume changes in this video and in her concert performances. What are you wearing right now as you answer these questions, and will you change clothes throughout the day?
PJs and it is 2AM.

4) The choreography in this video was inspired by Janet Jackson's videos in the 1990s. The Jackson family -- Janet, her brothers as solo artists and as The Jackson 5 -- have sold a staggering 750 million records. Can you think of another successful musical family?
The Nelsons.

5) Beyonce and husband Jay-Z have an impressive classic car collection, including a restored and customized 1959 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud II, reportedly worth $1,000,000. If you suddenly received a million, what would you splurge on? We want to hear about a gift you'd give yourself. (It doesn't have to take the whole $1,000,000.)
Not much, when you are in your 70s you are trying to get rid of the clutter and not make more.

6) Beyonce "loves to lather" and enjoys shampooing her hair. What's a simple, everyday thing that relaxes you?
I listen to audiobooks, the other day I listened to the deck while relaxing on the deck, in the sun.

7) In 2011, when "Love on Top" was popular, so were movie franchises. Sequels to Harry Potter, Transformers, Twilight, Kung Foo Panda, and Disney's Cars and Pirates of the Caribbean all topped the box office. What's your favorite movie series?
Well I haven’t gone to a movie theater in probably a decade. I like the Harry Potter series, and the Outlander series. One thing that I noticed many movies start becoming cookie cutter movies , they are all basically the same. When the movie is based up a book series it have more variety.

8) Speaking of sequels, Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and two of its sequels (The Girl Who Played with Fire and the The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest) were on the NY Times list of fiction bestsellers for 2011. Have you read any of them?
Nope, never hear of them… are they SiFi?

9) Random question -- Which of these items do you misplace most often: your cellphone, your keys or the TV remote?
My keys are always in my purse.
My TV remote is always on the end table on my left.
Now my cellphone is “usually” in my purse, the problem is when I take it out of it. Yesterday I had to call it to find it (It slid between the cushions on the couch. The most dreaded thing is when the battery runs down and when I call it, the phone goes to voice mail!.)

Thanks so much for joining us again at Saturday: 9. As always, feel free to come back, see who has participated and comment on their posts. In fact sometimes, if you want to read & comment on everyone's responses, you might want to check back again tomorrow. But it is not a rule. We haven’t any rules here. Join us on next Saturday for another version of Saturday: 9, "Just A Silly Meme on a Saturday!" Enjoy your weekend.


Last weekend… Friday I went up to Vermont to ride the chair up Mt. Snow for the foliage. It was a long, long day and not very productive. The news down here in Connecticut said it was at their peak… well I’ll you decide about the color.

I left at 10, picked up a friend and it was a 2 hour drive to Vermont, I got back at 6 and I was totally beat! Saturday I rested and worked on the photos.
Top of Mt. Snow ski area (Bluebird Lift)

Top of Hogback Mt. (It used to be a ski area back in the 70s.

So what do you think? At its peak?
at 4 comments:

Friday, October 04, 2024

The Purge!

A list of who is naughty and who is nice to Trump is being made to fire liberal federal employees… (Using Trumpspeak) By our lovely friends at the Heritage Foundation, you know those great people who gave us Project 2025!
From his home office in small-town Kentucky, a seasoned political operative is quietly investigating scores of federal employees suspected of being hostile to the policies of Republican Donald Trump, a highly unusual and potentially chilling effort that dovetails with broader conservative preparations for a new White House.

Tom Jones and his American Accountability Foundation are digging into the backgrounds, social media posts and commentary of key high-ranking government employees, starting with the Department of Homeland Security. They’re relying in part on tips from his network of conservative contacts, including workers.
Hey! Wait a minute isn’t there a law against this?
Heritage Foundation Staffers Flood Federal Agencies With Thousands of Information Requests
The conservative think tank’s requests are clogging the pipeline at federal agencies in an apparent attempt to find employees a potential Trump administration would want to purge.
ProPublica
By Sharon Lerner and Andy Kroll
October 1, 2024

Three investigators for the Heritage Foundation have deluged federal agencies with thousands of Freedom of Information Act requests over the past year, requesting a wide range of information on government employees, including communications that could be seen as a political liability by conservatives. Among the documents they’ve sought are lists of agency personnel and messages sent by individual government workers that mention, among other things, “climate equity,” “voting” or “SOGIE,” an acronym for sexual orientation, gender identity and expression.

The Heritage team filed these requests even as the think tank’s Project 2025 was promoting a controversial plan to remove job protections for tens of thousands of career civil servants so they could be identified and fired if Donald Trump wins the presidential election.

All three men who filed the requests — Mike Howell, Colin Aamot and Roman Jankowski — did so on behalf of the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, an arm of the conservative group that uses FOIA, lawsuits and undercover videos to investigate government activities. In recent months, the group has used information gleaned from the requests to call attention to efforts by the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency to teach staff about gender diversity, which Fox News characterized as the “Biden administration’s ‘woke’ policies within the Department of Defense.” Heritage also used material gathered from a FOIA search to claim that a listening session the Justice Department held with voting rights activists constituted an attempt to “rig” the presidential election because no Republicans were present.
Naw… there is no such thing as Project 2025… don’t look behind the curtain, it is just a liberal hoax. Fake news!
Project 2025’s plan to gut civil service with mass firings: ‘It’s like the bad old days of King Henry VIII’
Even as Trump tries to disavow the rightwing blueprint, both have similar plans to replace many federal employees
The Guardian
By Steven Greenhouse
25 Sep 2024


Even as Donald Trump seeks to disavow Project 2025, he and the rightwing effort’s authors have voiced similarly hostile plans for the US’s 2 million-plus federal employees – to replace many of them with political appointees.

These plans are stirring alarm among federal employees, with many warning that “politicizing” the civil service will hurt not just them, but also millions of Americans across the US by undermining how well the US government provides services and enforces regulations that protect the public.

Speaking about federal employees last month, the former president said: “They’re destroying this country. They’re crooked people, they’re dishonest people. They’re going to be held accountable.”

Project 2025, which is backed by the rightwing Heritage Foundation thinktank, has proposed to “dismantle the administrative state”, while Trump’s official “Agenda 47” calls for “cleaning out the Deep State” and “on Day One” issuing an “executive order restoring the president’s authority to fire rogue bureaucrats”.
As Sgt. Schultz says “I know nothing… I see nothing…”

ProPublica goes on to write,
Those 2,000 requests are just the tip of the iceberg, Howell told ProPublica in an interview. Howell, the executive director of the Oversight Project, estimated that his group had submitted more than 50,000 information requests over the past two years. He described the project as “the most prestigious international investigative operation in the world.”

Among 744 requests that Aamot, Jankowski and Howell submitted to the Department of the Interior over the past year are 161 that seek civil servants’ emails and texts as well as Slack and Microsoft Teams messages that contained terms including “climate change”; “DEI,” or diversity, equity and inclusion; and “GOTV,” an acronym for get out the vote. Many of these FOIAs request the messages of individual employees by name.
The is a law called the Hatch Act with bans the firing of federal employees.
Federal Employee Hatch Act Information

Except for the President and Vice President, all federal civilian executive branch employees are covered by the Hatch Act, including employees of the U.S. Postal Service. Even part-time employees are covered by the Act, and all employees continue to be covered while on annual leave, sick leave, leave without pay, or furlough. However, employees who work on an occasional or irregular basis, or who are special government employees, as defined in title 18 U.S.C. § 202(a), are subject to the restrictions only when they are engaged in government business. Federal employees fall within two categories under the Hatch Act, Further Restricted and Less Restricted.
But as you already know… laws do not apply to Republicans.

ProPublica goes on…
Among 744 requests that Aamot, Jankowski and Howell submitted to the Department of the Interior over the past year are 161 that seek civil servants’ emails and texts as well as Slack and Microsoft Teams messages that contained terms including “climate change”; “DEI,” or diversity, equity and inclusion; and “GOTV,” an acronym for get out the vote. Many of these FOIAs request the messages of individual employees by name.

Trump has made clear his intentions to overhaul the Department of the Interior, which protects the nation’s natural resources, including hundreds of millions of acres of land. Under President Joe Biden, the department has made tackling climate change a priority.

Hundreds of the requests asked for government employees’ communications with civil rights and voting rights groups, including the ACLU; the Native American Rights Fund; Rock the Vote; and Fair Count, an organization founded by Democratic politician and voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams. Still other FOIAs sought communications that mention “Trump” and “Reduction in Force,” a term that refers to layoffs.
As Alfred E. Neuman said “What? Me Worry”

Trump is not worried about the law, he will do what he did before ignore the laws. Citizens for Ethical Government says,
According to Donald Trump’s posts on Truth Social, Trump’s plan for a second term includes increased militarization of federal law enforcement to arrest people experiencing homelessness, “wag[e] war” on drug dealers, crack down on border crossings and ramp up the use of the death penalty. Many of these plans would represent an unprecedented expansion of presidential power and could lead to a slippery slope of weaponizing the federal government against civilians and infringing their civil liberties. Congress should take action to counteract them.

According to a CREW analysis of over 13,000 of Trump’s Truth Social posts from January 1, 2023 to April 1, 2024, Trump has vowed at least 19 times to weaponize law enforcement against civilians. This includes deploying state and local police, multiple branches of the military and federal law enforcement agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, FBI and Homeland Security agencies against people crossing the southern border, homeless people and protestors. Trump has a niche audience on Truth Social so the full extent of these plans—and the violence they promise—have flown under the radar.
Did you ever hear of the The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878?
The Insurrection Act authorizes the president to deploy military forces inside the United States to suppress rebellion or domestic violence or to enforce the law in certain situations. The statute implements Congress’s authority under the Constitution to “provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.” It is the primary exception to the Posse Comitatus Act, under which federal military forces are generally barred from participating in civilian law enforcement activities.

Although it is often referred to as the “Insurrection Act of 1807,” the law is actually an amalgamation of different statutes enacted by Congress between 1792 and 1871. Today, these provisions occupy Sections 251 through 255 in Title 10 of the United States Code.
So Trump has said he would use the act in peaceful student protests, in peaceful strikes, and to round up the homeless! All in violation of the law.
 
There is a lot at stack in this election, Trump has vowed to make us criminals, he has vowed to make the abortion bans nation wide, and he has vowed to use federal troops to quell student protests.
 
Vote Blue to keep us from becoming the Untied States from become authoritarian regime. 

at No comments:

Thursday, October 03, 2024

Schools! & Trans

I have a medley of trans and education articles for you this morning. I start off with… more lies from the “Donald.”
Donald Trump says schools are now almost exclusively teaching kids how to be transgender
He claims he saw "programs" that showed that schools aren't teaching math or reading anymore, they're just teaching "transgender."
LGBTQ Nation
By Alex Bollinger
October 2, 2024


Donald Trump is now claiming that kids in schools are only learning about how to be transgender instead of “reading writing, arithmetic,” which is not true at all.

He made the comments during an interview with Fox Nation’s Kellyanne Conway where she asked about his plans to disband the Department of Education, which would be devastating for the funding of high-needs schools in the U.S.

Conway said that the left is only against this plan because “they want these kids to be in failing schools.”

“We’re the party for common sense,” Trump started saying, cutting off Conway as she tried to pose a question. “The left is against almost anything that’s good.”

“We’re going to move education back to the states where they can run their educational programs and they’ll do great,” he said. He then said that the U.S. is “last” in education, “we’re the worst” – which isn’t true – and that the U.S. spends more money “than anybody” per student on education, which is true if Luxembourg is excluded, although almost none of that money comes from the federal government. Schools in the U.S. get just under half of their funding from local governments and just under half from state governments.
His cult followers gobble it right up… our leader said so it must be true! When you read the comments on Yahoo, there are a lot of comments that believe the garbage.
After rambling for a bit, he promised more state control of education and claimed that education would be better in conservative states like India and Idaho and worse in liberal states like California. He said that states would have full control except, “We’ll have like one person and a secretary sitting there to make sure they have English, okay, they teach…”

“We want reading, writing, and arithmetic,” he said. “Right now, you have mostly transgender. Everything’s transgender.”

The Advocate reported on more of his rantings.
Trump attacked people with mental disabilities and trans Americans then promoted a violent purge
Online reactions ranged from shocked and horrified to expected.
By Christopher Wiggins
September 30 2024


Former President Donald Trump gave two unhinged speeches over the weekend. His words were marked by a combination of attacks on his political opponents, unfounded claims about the state of the country, and inflammatory rhetoric targeting marginalized communities. At a rally in Erie, Penn., on Sunday, the former president launched into a tirade against Vice President Kamala Harris, immigrants, and transgender people as he continues to ramp up his divisive message ahead of the November election.

Trump used his platform to target Harris, making disturbing and false comments about her mental capacity. At a rally in Wisconsin the day before, he suggested, “She was born that way… only a mentally disabled person could have allowed this to happen to our country.”
Can you believe that garbage? This low life was president and he has a very good chance he will win this November! LGBTQ Nation writes that,
As part of his ongoing attacks against transgender people, Trump fixated on the idea of transgender athletes participating in sports. In Erie, he accused Harris and the Democrats of promoting what he called “transgender insanity” in schools. “We’re not going to have men playing in women’s sports,” he said.

In Wisconsin, he promised, “We will...keep critical race theory and transgender insanity out of our schools, and we will keep men out of women’s sports.”

As the 2024 election draws nearer, Trump’s rhetoric continues to grow more extreme, with a focus on attacking those he sees as threats to his vision of America. His words have left many concerned about real-world consequences, as his language may embolden supporters to act on fear and hate.

Shifting the focus to Missouri and the so called expert witnesses.
Credibility of state’s expert witnesses questioned in Missouri transgender health care trial
States’ experts lack published articles on gender dysphoria or face retractions
Missouri Independent
By: Annelise Hanshaw
October 2, 2024


Missouri’s defense of a state law barring minors from beginning puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones will depend on whether the judge in the case puts stock in expert witnesses touting retracted studies and conspiracy theories about Jerry Sandusky.

Wright County Circuit Court Judge Craig Carter, who is presiding over a lawsuit challenging Missouri’s gender-affirming care restrictions, will have to weigh the credibility of expert witnesses alongside his judgment.

Questions of credibility came up Tuesday, when the Missouri Attorney General’s Office called as a witness John Michael Bailey, a psychology professor at Northwestern who testified about his now-retracted study entitled “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria,” which concludes that adolescents identify as transgender as a result of social contagion.

But it was his social media post about the accusers of Jerry Sandusky that appeared to concern Carter.
Oh it is our friend Bailey… NOT! He is the one with of the refuted theory of “Autogynephilia!” He wrote, “The Man who would be Queen: The Science of Gender Bending and Transsexualism.” which was wildly discredited.
Bailey’s research on transgender youth has been retracted, which he chalked up to pressure from activists.

The academic journal that retracted his article cited an issue with informed consent protocol, meaning participants didn’t know their responses would be in an article. On cross-examination, the circumstances of his research became clearer.
Of course he wouldn’t admit to bad science. Over the years I wrote about this study it was by Dr. Lisa Littman later on J. Michael Bailey co-authored a study with Suzanna Diaz that examined 1,655 parental reports of possible ROGD cases. That study was also refuted! Scientific America wrote about the study,
A recent study claiming to describe more than 1,600 possible cases of a “socially contagious syndrome” was retracted in June for failing to obtain ethics approval from an institutional review board. The survey examined “rapid-onset gender dysphoria,” a proposed condition that attributes adolescent gender distress to exposure to transgender people through friends or social media. The existence of such a syndrome has been the subject of intense debate for the past several years and has fueled arguments against transgender rights reforms, despite being widely criticized by medical experts.

The American Psychological Association and 61 other health care providers’ organizations signed a letter in 2021 denouncing the validity of rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) as a clinical diagnosis. And a steadily growing body of scientific evidence demonstrates that it does not reflect transgender adolescents’ experiences and that “social contagion” is not causing more young people to seek gender-affirming care. Still, the concept continues to be used to justify anti-trans legislation across the U.S.
So where did the researchers get their research subject? From trans youth? Nope, they interviewed conservative parents of trans youth!
Like the 2018 study that coined the term rapid-onset gender dysphoria, the recently retracted paper, which was published this March in Archives of Sexual Behavior, surveyed parents of transgender children about their children’s experiences. The study was co-authored by Michael Bailey, a psychologist at Northwestern University, and Suzanna Diaz, a pseudonym used by a mother of a child with gender dysphoria. Diaz is not affiliated with an institution and had already collected the survey data before collaborating with Bailey on the paper. The study was retracted because Diaz and Bailey did not get consent from the survey’s respondents to have their responses published, although Bailey disputes this. (Bailey declined to answer questions about the retraction from Scientific American.)

The participants in both the 2018 and the retracted 2023 studies were recruited from online communities that were explicitly critical about many aspects of gender-affirming care for transgender kids. Littman’s research was inspired in part by parents’ posts on these skeptical websites.
And these are the so called “experts” that are being called by witnesses. No wonder the judge is questioning their credentials.
at No comments:

30 Seconds

The ads are only around 30 seconds long but they are good at slinging mud.

I saw an ad by the National Republican Congressional Committee saying that Rep. Hayes voted against the bill on fentanyl. Period. The ad just attacked her for that vote, the digital online version Hartford Courant in an article “Hayes’ vote on fentanyl assailed” wrote about the ad…
“Yet Jahana Hayes was the only member of Congress from Connecticut to oppose a bipartisan bill to permanently classify fentanyl in the most dangerous category of drugs,” the announcer says. “The only one.”

The ad then closes by saying, “How many more must die, Jahana?”
Whoa, that’s heavy! My first thought was what was the story about the no vote. The first thing that popped into my head was, was it like the crack cocaine law? That law was lock em up and throw away the key bill. Since more Blacks used crack than plan cocaine (Both of them are the same, they are just a different forms of the same drug.).

This morning there was an article about the ad in the Courant and it answered my questions,
“My no vote was because this bill didn’t do anything to provide prevention, treatment, recovery, harm reduction, or money for law enforcement,” Hayes said. “Basically what it said was that anyone knowingly or unknowingly possessing fentanyl in any amount would have a mandatory minimum sentence with no discretion by a judge or anything. For me, I come to this work from a very different place than my colleagues. I saw what the 1994 crime bill did to decimate communities. I know that we cannot incarcerate our way out of a public health crisis.”

She continued, “There was no discretion between someone who was a high-level drug trafficker or a teenager who unknowingly possessed something laced with fentanyl. We tried to get amendments added to change that part of the language. There were over 150 groups that came out against this bill, saying it was problematic, and it wasn’t a comprehensive approach to both the problem of drug trafficking and overdoses and the public health crisis.”
Yup, it was the same as the crack cocaine laws… lock em up and throw away the key bill. I agree with her. It was a typical Republican bill, “A touchy feely good bill” that hard on crime but what it really does is fill up our jails with minorities.
Politically, Hayes said, “Everybody said it’s not going anywhere. It will be easier just to sign onto it. My response was I was in a family and a community that was decimated by the 1994 crime bill, which tried to do this exact same thing. … The mandatory minimum sentence was a deal breaker for me. People said, ‘It has the word ‘fentanyl’ in it. This is going to be more of a headache.’ “

For Hayes, the vote was also personal.
I totally agree with her vote!

Lock em up doesn’t work. I asked my favorite AI, Perplexity AI: “Which states have the highest crime rate, Republicans states or Democratic states?”
 Answer
Based on the search results provided, the data suggests that Republican-leaning states tend to have higher crime rates, particularly for murder, compared to Democratic-leaning states. Here are the key points:

Red States vs Blue States
  •     Murder rates in states that voted for Trump (red states) have consistently exceeded those in states that voted for Biden (blue states) every year from 2000 to 2020.
  •     Over this 21-year period, the per capita murder rate in red states was on average 23% higher than in blue states.
  •     In 2021 and 2022, the red state murder rate was 33% higher than the blue state murder rate.
  •     From 2000 to 2022, the average red state murder rate was 24% higher than the average blue state murder rate.
Top States for Murder Rates
  •     8 out of the 10 states with the highest murder rates in 2022 voted for Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020.
  •     States like Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama (all Republican-leaning) have consistently had the highest murder rates, occupying the top three spots for 15 of the last 23 years.
  •     Other red states like South Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Missouri have also frequently been in the top 10 for murder rates since the early 2000s.
Trends Over Time
  •     The gap in murder rates between red and blue states has widened over time, from 9% in 2003-2004 to 43% in 2020.
  •     From 2000 to 2020, murder rates increased by 39.4% in red states compared to just 13.4% in blue states.
It's important to note that these statistics focus primarily on murder rates rather than overall crime rates. The data also shows that this trend persists even when removing the largest cities from red states, suggesting it's not solely an urban issue.

While crime is a complex issue influenced by many factors, the available data indicates that Republican-leaning states have generally experienced higher murder rates compared to Democratic-leaning states over the past two decades.re
I had one more question for Perplexity AI: “Which states have a high prison population Republican states or Democratic states per 100,000 residents?”
Answer
Based on the search results provided, there is a trend indicating that Republican-leaning states generally have higher incarceration rates per 100,000 residents compared to Democratic-leaning states. Here are the key points:
 
Top States for Incarceration
  •     Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas, all traditionally Republican states, have the highest incarceration rates per 100,000 residents as of 2022, with rates of 661, 596, and 574 respectively.
  •     Other Republican-leaning states like Oklahoma, Idaho, Texas, and Arizona also rank high on the list, with rates above 440 per 100,000 residents.
Comparison to Democratic States
  •     Many Democratic-leaning states tend to have lower incarceration rates. For example:
       - California has a rate of 250 per 100,000
       - New York has a rate of 317 per 100,000
       - Massachusetts has the lowest rate in the country (though still high by global standards)
 
Regional Patterns
  •     Southern states, which tend to vote Republican, generally have higher incarceration rates. States like Georgia, Alabama, and Florida all have rates above 375 per 100,000.
  •     Northeastern states, which often lean Democratic, typically have lower rates. For instance, New Jersey has a rate of 270 per 100,000.
Notable Exceptions
  • While the trend favors higher incarceration rates in Republican states, there are exceptions. Some Democratic-leaning states like Nevada and New Mexico have relatively high rates (322 and 231 per 100,000 respectively).
It's important to note that incarceration rates are influenced by various factors, including crime rates, sentencing laws, and socioeconomic conditions. However, the data suggests a correlation between political leaning and incarceration rates, with Republican-leaning states generally having higher rates than Democratic-leaning states.
So I will let you decide… Does “Lock em up and throw away the key” work?

The Hartford Courant article goes on to say,
“Incarceration was the response to fentanyl,” she said. “Only incarceration with mandatory minimum sentences with no discretion for the judge to even decide, based on the circumstances, if incarceration was warranted. … We tried this in the 1990s. It didn’t work.”

A separate bill, known as the End FENTANYL Act, has been signed into law by Biden that is designed to improve inspections at the border in an attempt to block fentanyl from being smuggled into the United States.

In addition, Hayes is co-sponsoring other bills to attack the issue, including increasing funding for treatment, training teachers to administer life-saving drugs, increasing access to narcan, and heightening awareness of fentanyl in schools.
Of course the ad doesn’t anything about the other bill, just the “Lock em up” bill.

Most voters are lazy, they don’t look behind the curtain… “OMG how could she!”

Connecticut Fifth District is in the national spot light, the district has always been a tight race. Going back and forth between parties and as a result national money is pouring in…
Third-party money

Outside money has been pouring into the 5th district as the race is watched nationally.

The Democratic National Committee announced that it is pouring an additional $70,000 into Connecticut to help the “ground game” for Hayes and others to get out the vote in the final five weeks before election day. The state Democratic Party says that the Hayes race is “the number one priority” in this election cycle.

A third-party group, known as Americans for Prosperity Action in Arlington, Va., has been sending two-sided, full color fliers to homes across the district. With Logan’s picture on both sides, the mailer says Logan will “lower inflation, secure the border” and keep communities safe.

With the stakes so high, the spending will continue.

“We have reserved over $1 million in television and digital advertising in Hartford that started with our first ad, which called out Jahana Hayes for failing to act on the fentanyl crisis,” said Republican spokeswoman Savannah Viar.
Do your homework, when you see an ad question it. Google… Google News for more news article and read the article and see what they are talking about in the ads. Both parties lie by omission, votes is not passive… it is active you have to get up off your butt and see what the issues they are talking about are true or not.

Vote Blue for sane criminal laws, vote Blue for laws that work and are not just “Touchy Feely, Good!” laws.


While I was reading the paper this morning another article caught my attention...

The FBI is investigating the source of suspicious packages sent to election offices in more than 20 states. Some election offices have been evacuated; staff are frightened.

Suspicious packages, bomb threats, death threats, harassment, assassination attempts, and violence are consequences of the politics of hate, now emanating more ferociously than ever from Trump and his sycophants.

Many explanations have been offered for why two assassination attempts have been made on Trump over the last two months. Some blame easy access to assault weapons; I’m sure that’s part of it.

But the real incitement to violence in America is hatefulness — hate speech, fearsome lies, and dangerous, paranoid rumors — the epicenter of which is Trump.
This is terrorism! Plain and simple.
terrorism
noun
ter·​ror·​ism ˈter-ər-ˌi-zəm
: the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion
Merriam Webster
 The bomb treats are closing down schools and hospitals!
Trump blames the intensifying climate of violence on Kamala Harris and the Democrats: “Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at,” he said. “Because of this Communist Left Rhetoric, the bullets are flying, and it will only get worse!” he wrote in a social media post. Trump’s campaign has circulated a list of so-called “incendiary” remarks Democrats have made against Trump and posted video clips from top Democrats calling him a “threat.”

JD Vance says “we cannot tell the American people that one candidate is a fascist and if he’s elected it is going to be the end of American democracy.”

Hello? Calling Trump a fascist and a threat to democracy is not inciting violence; it’s telling the truth. American voters need to be made aware, if they aren’t already.

Let’s be clear: The most significant cause of the upsurge in political violence — including the two attempts on Trump’s life — is Trump himself, along with his close allies Vance and Elon Musk, and other cranks and crackpots that have come along for the ride.
The Anti-Violence Project writes,
 Hate crimes against LGBTQ people increased since last year according to new FBI data. Bias crimes motivated by sexual orientation and gender identity were up in 2022 over last year, representing one fifth of total hate crimes tracked by the FBI. 

Executive Director of the New York City Anti-Violence Project, Beverly Tillery, responds:  
“This data reflects the sad reality our communities have known this past year, that we are facing increased harm and violence, and our safety is at risk,” says AVP Executive Director Beverly Tillery. “This is sadly only a snapshot of the real problem, as we know many threats and hate incidents against our communities go unreported or are not considered crimes and are untracked in this data.”
Vote Blue and keep your fingers crossed that there is not violence after the election like in 2020.
at No comments:

Wednesday, October 02, 2024

So The Early Polls Are In!

The big question is “Who won?” and reading various polls and article we can safely say, it was… a draw! Just like the election polls split right down the middle. Yup, just like everything else political 50/50.
Many Americans say Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) outperformed Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) during Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate, according to polling from CBS News, which hosted the forum.

According to the CBS poll, 42 percent of debate watchers say Vance, a Yale-trained lawyer, won the debate. Walz trails closely behind with 41 percent of viewers saying he was victorious. About 17 percent said it was a tie.

The event marked one of the most civil national-level debates in recent history. There was no name-calling or personal attacks, and the men often agreed with one another and shared emotion about their children.

Nearly all, 88 percent, of those that watched the debate said the Vance-Walz face-off was generally positive, while 12 percent said it was generally negative, the survey showed.

[...]

A similar survey conducted by CNN following the debate found Vance performed better on stage than Walz, but not by much. Just over 50 percent of viewers in the survey said Vance, who is former President Trump’s running mate, did a better job while 49 percent chose Walz.

CNN noted that viewers say Vance surprised those watching with his performance. In a survey conducted among the same voters prior to the debate, Walz held the advantage over his GOP opponent by 54 percent to 45 percent.
Some articles snippets...

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance refused to acknowledge that Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election during the vice presidential debate Tuesday and downplayed the seriousness of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, which injured more than 140 law enforcement officers.
Dead even: POLITICO snap poll shows stark division on debate
The results reflect the country’s hyper-polarized politics.
Partisans on both sides will have arguments for why their guy did well at certain times and not as well at others in the first and only vice-presidential debate Tuesday night between Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz.

This debate likely will not move the needle at all in this presidential campaign, because — first and foremost — no one votes for the vice-presidential pick. After all, the most important rule of being a running mate is, “First, do no harm.”
Here is PolitiFact score card...

Vance Walz
  • Vance: "Vance: "We have 320,000 children that the Department of Homeland Security has effectively lost. Some of them have been sex trafficked." - Mostly False.
  • Vance: "So there's an application called the CBP One app, where you can go on as an illegal migrant, apply for asylum or apply for parole and be granted legal status." - Mostly False.
  • Vance: "As I read the Minnesota law that (Walz) signed into law … it says that a doctor who presides over an abortion where the baby survives, the doctor is under no obligation to provide lifesaving care to a baby who survives a botched late-term abortion." - False.
  • Vance: "Iran, which launched this attack (on Israel), has received over $100 billion and unfrozen assets, thanks to the Kamala Harris administration." - False.
  • Vance: "What (Harris has) actually done instead is drive the cost of food higher by 25%, drive the cost of housing higher by about 60%." - Half True.
  • Vance: "Kamala Harris let in fentanyl into our communities at record levels." - Mostly False.
  • Vance: "Donald Trump could have destroyed the (Affordable Care Act). Instead, he worked in a bipartisan way to ensure that Americans had access to affordable care." - False.
  • Vance: Donald Trump "peacefully gave over power on January the 20th as we have done for 250 years in this country." - Mostly False.
  • Walz: "Their Project 2025 is gonna have a registry of pregnancies." - False.
  • Walz: "When Iranian missiles did fall near U.S. troops and they received traumatic brain injuries, Donald Trump wrote it off as ‘headaches.’" - True.
  • Walz said he ‘misspoke’ about being in Hong Kong during 1989 Tiananmen Square protests
  • Walz: "And the good news on this is, is the last 12 months saw the largest decrease in opioid deaths in our nation's history." - Mostly True.
  • Walz: "Look, I got a, I got a 17-year-old and he witnessed a shooting at a community center playing volleyball." - True.
  • Walz: "Sen. Vance has said that there's a climate problem in the past. Donald Trump called it (climate change) a hoax and then joked that these things would make more beachfront property to be able to invest in." - True.
  • Walz: "We are producing more natural gas and more oil at any time than we ever have." - True.
  • Walz: "Donald Trump hasn't paid any federal tax in the last 15 years. The last year as president." - Mostly False.
  • Walz: Trump "gave the tax cuts that predominantly went to the top class. What happened there was an $8 trillion increase in the national debt, the largest ever." - Mostly True.

AP News has their own fact checks here.

So what did you think?

online polls
at No comments:

One Nation Under…

The Republican evangelical Christian base dream of a Christian nation, but not just any Christian religion but only the far-right Christian.
J.D. Vance’s Christian Nationalist Ties Are Growing
Trump’s running mate will appear with a far-right religious leader at a Pennsylvania rally this weekend.
The New Republic
By Edith Olmsted
September 27, 2024


The Republican vice presidential nominee will attend an event in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, on Saturday hosted by The Lance Wallnau Show.

Wallnau is a one of the leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation, or NAR, a sect of evangelical Christianity devoted to proselytizing the Seven Mountain Mandate, referring to the seven aspects of society—government, family, religion, arts and entertainment, media, education, and business—that its followers are meant to influence with their faith so that Christians can hold dominion over the world.

Unsurprisingly, he’s adamantly pro–Donald Trump.

Wallnau has been associated with Trump’s campaign since at least January 2024, when he announced his “Courage Tour” in collaboration with the far-right youth organization Turning Point USA, another group hoping to flesh out Trump’s lackluster ground game.
You will not see them talking about this on the evening news but rather it is on the right-wing pundits talk shows. World and Way wrote,
Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance took the stage at Christian Nationalist preacher Lance Wallnau’s election-season revival tour on Saturday (Sept. 28), using the setting to make a theological defense of the GOP campaign’s controversial immigration policies and to appeal to Wallnau’s conservative Christian crowd in a hotly contested swing state.

Seated for an interview with Pastor Jason Howard, who leads Sanctuary, a church nearby, Vance brought up his campaign’s restrictive stance on immigration while answering a string of questions about policy and his faith.

Citing a “Christian idea that you owe the strongest duty to your family,” Vance said Christian leaders should likewise be concerned first about protecting their country, not citizens of other nations. “It doesn’t mean that you have to be mean to other people, but it means that your first duty as an American leader is to the people of your own country,” said Vance, a Roman Catholic.
I am not a religious person but I remember my catechism classes that Jesus taught love not animosity.


They want to make us an evangelical Christian nation… no Congregationalists, no Episcopalians, no Universalist, just evangelicals.

Vote Blue, vote Harris/Walz, vote Blue to keep religion out of government. vote to keep us from becoming the new Iran, or Afghanistan, or Saudi Arabia.
at No comments:

Hedge Funds.

[Editorial]

When a hedge fund takes over a company they milk it for all it assets and then toss it out in the trash. Take a look at the news media.

The Hartford Courant the longest printed newspaper in the the country, all it is now is a bunch of canned articles with no local content. The sharks are also gobbling up the healthcare industry.

Steward Healthcare, Lown Institute reported,
By Judith Garber and Imari Daniels
March 19, 2024


Private equity acquisitions in healthcare have grown rapidly over the past decade, and hospitals are no exception. As of January 2024, at least 460 hospitals are now owned by private equity firms, comprising 30% of for-profit hospitals in the U.S. 

Previous reports have shown the perils of private equity acquisitions of rural hospitals, but these aren’t the only type of hospital at risk. Steward Health Care, a for-profit system formerly owned by a private equity firm, is selling nine hospitals in Massachusetts, after running out of money to run the hospitals. Here’s what happened, and what the fallout might mean for Massachusetts communities.

[…]

Beyond immediate employee concerns, there’s a real risk of deepening economic challenges and health inequalities within the community with this disruption of healthcare services to almost 200,000 patients. As Steward hospitals transition to new owners, challenges will require concerted efforts from all stakeholders involved to overcome these obstacles and continue supporting the well-being of the communities they serve.
We see the same thing in the news media, PBS News…
Beyond immediate employee concerns, there’s a real risk of deepening economic challenges and health inequalities within the community with this disruption of healthcare services to almost 200,000 patients. As Steward hospitals transition to new owners, challenges will require concerted efforts from all stakeholders involved to overcome these obstacles and continue supporting the well-being of the communities they serve.
But you know where else we see this trend on a national level? Where billionaires are stripping the wealth from the middle class? Insurance industries made a killing last year, Insurance Business Magazine reported that,
In 2023, publicly traded US health insurance companies continued to experience growth, with total GAAP revenue climbing 10.4% to reach $1.07 trillion, as highlighted in a new report by AM Best.
What they are doing is milking the middle class just like hedge funds do.

They are making money hand over fist off of our health problems driving us to bankruptcy court over medical bills. Congress has been holding hearing on drug prices, The Congressional House committee writes,

Today, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability held a hearing titled “The Role of Pharmacy Benefit Managers in Prescription Drug Markets Part III: Transparency and Accountability.” At the hearing, Republicans and Democrats pressed Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM) chief executives on their role in rising prescription drug costs. Lawmakers exposed how PBMs have collaborated to monopolize the pharmaceutical marketplace and push deliberate, anticompetitive policies that undermine local pharmacies, raise the cost of lifesaving drugs, and harm patients across the country. Earlier today, Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) issued a staff report on the Committee’s investigation of PBMs which details the self-benefiting pricing tactics used by the PBM industry. Lawmakers concluded Congress must continue working in a bipartisan fashion to address harmful PBM practices and advance legislative solutions to protect patients and reduce drug costs.   
These conglomerates gobble up companies to create monopolies that control huge slices of a market. Stocks are what they throw to us peons. It is the CEOs, and the other company executives who make the real money! CBS News reported that Musk made,
In the history of U.S. corporate pay packages, there have been plenty of massive payouts worth almost $1 billion in today's dollars. But none comes close to the $46 billion pay deal Tesla shareholders on Thursday handed to CEO Elon Musk.
Can you even imagine getting paid forty-six billion dollars? ProPublica wrote…
In 2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the world’s richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes. He achieved the feat again in 2011. In 2018, Tesla founder Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, also paid no federal income taxes.
These billionaires suck the life out of our economy, if envy is green then greed is yellow!

Through their media out lets we get blames for the country’s woes… the LGBTQ+ community, the immigrants, and government are the scapegoats.

Ever since Reagan’s Trickle Down Theory the earning power for the middle class has been shrinking while the billionaires are sitting in the dough like Scrooge McDuck playing a vault of money.



This is the result of Reagan Trickle Down theory...



[/Editorial]
at No comments:

Tuesday, October 01, 2024

Yeah, Right…

So the courts said it wasn’t discrimination that she was fired for supporting us.
A judge has ruled that a straight, cisgender principal in Minnesota was not discriminated against after she was removed from her position for LGBTQ+ advocacy at school. 
Pink News
October 1, 2024


On 25 September, a federal judge ruled that the principal would not be protected from alleged retaliation due to her advocacy of the queer community at her school, and is not protected under the First Amendment. 

The Thomas v. Marshall Pub Schs case saw the middle school principal Mary Kay Thomas alleging that she was discriminated against after she installed pride flags at her school, and launched a Gay-Straight Alliance. After backlash from her inclusivity, the school board and superintendent removed her from the role, with the installations at the school being allegedly carried out against the wishes of board members and the superintendent. 

Thomas argued that the board went against Title VII, Title IX, and the First Amendment as she was protecting marginalised groups at the school. However, U.S. District Court Judge Patrick J. Schiltz said that as Thomas described herself as a “straight, cisgender woman”, she is not afforded the same legal protections as those in the LGBTQ+ community.
She claimed that her First Amendment right to her speech and associate with others were violated,
Her First Amendment claim was also not applicable, as Thomas did not act as a private citizen in defence of LGBTQ+ rights, but rather as the school headteacher. Schiltz also ruled that it was not unlawful for the principal to be criticised due to her advocacy, as the backlash concerned her work duties, rather than independent speech.

Schiltz also ruled it was not retaliation as Thomas did not prove that she was removed from her position due to her advocacy initiatives specifically, rather than due to not following the orders of staff members and her superiors. 

Thomas’ claims were dismissed without prejudice, meaning she will remain employed with the school district in her new administrative role, which was reportedly created just for her.
I am not a lawyer but it seems to me that the judge got it wrong, does he mean that her civil rights goes out the door when you have a job? They are deciding if they want to appeal.

The Supreme Court is making it harder to sue for discrimination thanks to Trump far-right judges and there will be another judge who will probably retire in the next four years… do you want Trump to pick another judge.
at No comments:

A Party Built On Lies

It seems like every time you turn around Trump or Vance got caught in another lie! Beside the border situation, the climate, Springfield, and all the other lies Vance got caught lying about living in poverty.
J.D. Vance’s Stolen Valor: ‘He Puts on Poverty Like You Put on Makeup’
There’s a hollow core at the center of J.D. Vance’s origin story — his claim that he “grew up poor”
The Rolling Stone
By Tim Dickinson
September 30, 2024


After having his racist claims about Haitian immigrants challenged as lies, J.D. Vance made a shocking admission on live TV to CNN’s Dana Bash: He was happy “to create stories,” he said, in order to drive media attention to what he described as “the suffering of the American people.”

It was a remarkable confession of dishonesty from a politician. But it was even more shocking coming from Vance — a man who was catapulted into national prominence on the strength, and supposed credibility, of his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, which purports to shine a spotlight on hidden American suffering. Was Vance also “creating stories” back in 2016 in his bestseller?

In light of Vance’s admission, a close re-reading of Hillbilly Elegy by Rolling Stone uncovers a hollow claim at the center of the book. Namely that J.D. Vance “grew up poor.”
Lies, lies, lies! Can you trust the Republican party?

Pink News reports,
Ahead of his debate with vice-presidential rival Tim Walz, Vance was speaking at an event in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, hosted by Lance Wallnau, a right-wing anti-LGBTQ+ evangelical preacher who has said vice-president Kamala Harris is summoning the “the spirit of Jezebel”, apparently meaning she is using witchcraft.

“First of all, the American education system used to be the envy of the world, rich or poor alike,” Vance said on Saturday (30 September). “We believe in this country that every person deserves a quality education.

“Well, now we’ve got American children who can’t add five plus five, but they can tell you that there are 87 different genders and I think both of those things are related.”
I would like to point out that Project 2025 want to strip funding for the U.S. Department of Education.

Every word out of Trump and Vance are nothing but lies.

They say that they will not have a national abortion ban… but they have introduced bills that ban!
In the race for Congress, some Republicans are trying a new approach to abortion
PBS News
By Lisa Mascaro, Associated Press
September 19, 2024


In the most contested races for control of the U.S. House, many Republican candidates are speaking up about women’s rights to abortion access and reproductive care in new and surprising ways, a deliberate shift for a GOP blindsided by some political ramifications of the post-Roe v. Wade era.

Looking directly into the camera for ads, or penning personal op-eds in local newspapers, the Republicans are trying to distance themselves from some of the more aggressive anti-abortion ideas coming from their party and its allies. Instead the Republican candidates are working quickly to spell out their own views separate from a GOP that for decades has worked to put restrictions on reproductive care.

The new strategy is both sanctioned and promoted by the House Republicans’ campaign arm, an acknowledgement of the GOP’s failure to grasp the political power of women’s reproductive care as an issue that would mobilize voters.

“The Republicans have always known they’re actually on the wrong side of this issue,” said Ilyse Hogue, former president of the group previously known as NARAL Pro-Choice America, who is now a senior fellow at New America, a think tank in Washington. She said the party’s shift “wouldn’t surprise me.”
Do you trust them?

The White House wrote...
The Republican Study Committee budget:
  •     Supports eliminating reproductive freedom for all women in every state and puts IVF treatment squarely on the chopping block through House Republicans’ support for the Life at Conception Act.
  •     Endorses banning mifepristone – an FDA-approved, safe and effective medication that has been on the market for more than 20 years.
  •     Supports rolling back policies that help ensure our Nation’s veterans have access to abortion care when their health or lives are at risk or in cases of rape or incest.
  •     Guts funding for contraception—which is supported by the vast majority of Americans on both sides of the aisle—for low-income and uninsured women. This would further erode access to essential health care, from cancer screening to primary care, at a time when state abortion bans have already forced health clinics that provide contraception and other critical health services to close.
Then when the Republican realized that they shoot themselves in the foot… all of sudden, crickets. The RNC got word out… no talking about abortion! Sh...


Another lie...
The ex-president said Brian Kemp, the state governor, was trying to reach the president who was ‘sleeping’, in vain
Guardian
By George Chidi
September 30, 2024


Donald Trump spoke in front of a furniture store gutted by Hurricane Helene in Valdosta, Georgia, on Monday, claiming falsely that Georgia’s governor had not been able to reach Joe Biden.

Upon landing in Valdosta, Trump claimed to reporters the president had been “sleeping” and that Brian Kemp, the governor, had been “calling the president and hasn’t been able to get him”. He repeated the false claim when speaking in front of the store.

Kemp refuted the allegation earlier in the day. He said he had been playing phone tag with vice-president Kamala Harris, but also said: “The president just called me yesterday afternoon and he just said: ‘Hey, what do you need?’ … He offered that if there’s other things we need, just to call him directly, which, I appreciate that.”

[...]

When a pool reporter on Monday evening questioned Biden on the former president’s comments, Biden angrily interjected before the question was finished.

“He’s lying and the governor told him he was lying. The governor told him he’s lying. I’ve spoken to the governor, spent time with him, and he told him he’s lying. I don’t know why he does it … that’s simply not true, and it’s irresponsible.”
How can you trust this guy, he and his sidekick are chronic liars, every time they open their mouths another lie comes out.

I'm voting for the person with integrity, honesty, and compassion... Harris/Walz.
 
 
Update: 2PM
 
A campaign video was doctored to make it sound like VP Harris is drunk...
By Andre Byik
September 30, 204


The claim: Video shows Kamala Harris slurred words in Helene remarks

A Sept. 27 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) shows Vice President Kamala Harris delivering a warning about Hurricane Helene and speaking in an unusually slow manner.

Animated icons of alcoholic drinks are overlaid on the video, which is a repost of a TikTok video and includes on-screen text that reads, "Kammy's 'on the case' of Hurricane Helene."

The post's caption reads, "She slurring. Omg!"

The post was shared more than 90 times in three days.
 
 [...]
 
 This isn't the first time video of Harris has been altered in this way. USA TODAY debunked a similar video that falsely claimed Harris slurred her words while intoxicated during a Sept. 20 speech in Atlanta.
The dirty tricksters are in full swing, they are worried so they retreat to lying.

I don't know if this was a party ad, or a PAC ad, or the work of an individual, but it shows the type of junk that the conservatives are putting out.
at No comments: